Monday 31 January 2011

2 more years at 7

It's official now. Here is an excerpt from DG's email:
...The main decisions we have taken are that the LHC will run through 2012 before a long shutdown, we'll keep the energy at 3.5 TeV during 2011, and we'll work hard to increase the luminosity steadily...
Seems reasonable enough to me. With the pressure from the Tevatron gone, it is not critical to squeeze every bit out of the machine. Hence the decision to remain at the 7 TeV center-of-mass energy of collisions which increases the chances that the thing will not explode in our hands again. More importantly, the run-1 is going to continue until the end of 2012. By that time, the LHC should have acquired some 5 inverse femtobarns of data, maybe more. This will be enough to see glimpses of new physics, provided there is anything below a TeV. But the most solid advantage of extending the run-1 is that the Higgs will be discovered earlier than in the alternative scenario with the 2012 shutdown. Thus, the minimum plan should be accomplished by the early 2013, if only Higgs is where we expect him to be. The disadvantage is that for 5 more years, rather than 4, I'll have to listen to talks about supersymmetry.

For a more illuminating analysis of the Higgs prospects, see Tommaso's blog.

4 comments:

Luboš Motl said...

Dear Jester,

please be aware that because of this changed LHC plan, I am ready to forgive you 2 years of interest rates on the $10,000 supersymmetric bet you may lose in 2011 or 2012. ;-)

Yours
Lubos

Anonymous said...

I still read between the lines that they think about running at higher energies in 2012... who knows, maybe 8 TeV is finally enough to create that black hole that eats up the earth.

Cheers

Kea said...

5 more years of Susy? Oh, the horror!

Mediere said...

I was wondering when the first comment with "black hole" will be.